Snowfall

Able to stand it no longer, I pushed away my covers and stood up. I wandered a short way from our camp and found another rock that made a more pleasant perch. Sitting with my head in my hands,I pushed my fingers through the unruly blonde curls. So it was sitting thus, that I didn\'t see Amar approach, nor did I hear him.

\"Why so.. what is the word? Gloom, Mon Ami?\" I looked up startled, Staring at the man in front of me. He was dressed in black and seemed to be a part of the surroundings. I would almost question his being a part of my imagination but that he moved to step closer to me and I could feel the heat from his body so close to mine.

\"Glum.\" I said lamely and then remembered that it was a question he had asked me. \" I don\'t know.\" I chewed on my bottom lip in absent thought. I suddenly felt so much better now that Amar was here. I could not think of why I felt bad before. That had been the problem. I didn\'t know why I was distracted but it seemed of little importance at the moment.

\"Glum.\" He mused a moment and then shrugged. \" Well, I hope that I am not disturbing your thoughts then. I will go if you wish it.\"

\"No!\" I reached out a hand to him and caught him by the wrist. Albin, since when did you grab people? tsk tsk. I think it was my mother\'s voice that spoke in my head. Amar looked down at the hand curled around him and smiled before glancing up at me. I slowly let him go, good manners dictated that it was impolite to continue holding on to someone I barely knew. How odd that I felt reluctant to break that contact.

\"I.. I mean you aren\'t disturbing me.\" Pathetic really, I admit it but I was young and he was like no one I had ever met. \"I got your note. What does it say?\" It had occurred to me earlier in the day that these lines were not merely copied from the stones. I had a good eye for writing and this was in a different order than those, which meant that Amar knew what the letters were and how to read and write them.

Amar chuckled and held out his hand. I looked at it blankly for a moment and then blushed a deep shade of crimson. Reaching into my tunic again, I pulled out the small note and placed it in the Frenchman\'s waiting palm. The tips of his fingers curled up to touch my own as I slowly pulled my hand away. A shiver went up my spine at that barest touch, not unpleasant at all and so very confusing.

He moved up to sit next to me on the rock. There was not much room and we were touching thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder; His presence was comforting and I found myself unconsciously leaning towards him as he pointed to each of the lines.

\"I wrote it in English using this script but I shall explain the letters to you if you like.\"

\"Please.\" I looked at the enigmatic lines with eagerness. A mystery to solve and something new to learn. A thought came to me. \" What language was the script at the ruins in?\"

\"Ah. \" He seemed pleased by my question and answered. \" Gaelic. Do you know it?\"

\"No.\" I said sadly, hating to disappoint him. \" I can read Latin and English. I know a little French and Welsh from traveling but I cannot read them yet.\"

\"Wait until you see Welsh written. You\'ll be quite surprised, I think.\" He smirked and then pointed back to the paper. \"Perhaps it would be best if we solved one puzzle at a time.\"

I agreed and watched as he sat the piece of paper aside. He pulled a piece of parchment and a quill from his coat pocket and a well stoppered bottle of ink from another. I should have wondered at this point how it was that he was so prepared but I was too eager to learn to question that it might be odd to carry writing instruments while strolling alone in the middle of the night. That too should have concerned me. Yes, we were naive or perhaps just too happy to see Amar again to question his strange presence here for a third time in the middle of the night.

He began to write the little lines out in order, one line above the horizontal line, then two and so on. Then lines below and lines that crossed them one way and then another. Above each of these he wrote an English letter in order for me to understand. Some of the letters were not the same and some English letters were not represented but eventually he was done and he handed it to me. He then handed me the slip of paper and waited. I held them out in front of me to better compare the symbols in the moonlight.

\"Meet me again tonight.\" I looked up at Amar. \"But if I couldn\'t read it then how would I have known to meet you?\"

He dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. \" It was a chance I was taking. See, I did not figure you could read them but I was hoping that you would be curious about them and perhaps realize that I had left it as a message, hmm?\"

Well that made more sense. I had wondered what it said and why he had left it with me. I had figured that it was left to let me know that I was not dreaming, which is exactly what it had done. I did not think of Amar being in the area to see me again. This lead me to a question.

\"Isn\'t this out of your way? Why would you want to meet me again?\"

Amar smiled and stepped down from the rock. I leaned forward with a small frown, not wanting him to move away. He turned and looked at me, standing just in front of me, his chest nearly brushing my knees.

\"I have business in Italy, so no, this is not out of my way.\" My mind raced with possibilities, that could mean that I would possibly see him again. Even better, he could join us on our journey.

\"As for meeting you again...\" He shrugged and reached out a hand to finger one of the golden curls, his eyes distant like I remember waking to see them. He came back to himself a moment or so later and the gesture transformed into the familiar ruffling of my already tussled locks. \"I find you interesting, Albin. You\'re very intelligent and eager to learn. You will make a great scholar some day.\"

I blushed, glowing with pride under his compliments...and his gaze. \" Amar, you could travel with us if you are also going to Italy. I am sure Father John would not mind the extra company.\" The idea excited me and I looked forward to the rest of the trip walking by the Frenchman\'s side, listening to him.

\"Alas, no, Mon Ami, I have stops to make along the way, here and there. I have holdings and business partners.\" I must have looked rather crestfallen; probably something akin to a kicked puppy because Amar reached for me again, this time he laid his hand on my shoulder which was squeezed gently. I looked up and tried to smile. \"I have a horse but my rounds should keep me at about the same pace as you walking. Perhaps we could continue meeting at night after our journeys are done for the day. \"

\"Will you come to the campfire?\" Somehow, I didn\'t want to meet him like that if our time together was going to be brief. For the barest of moments I was jealous of anyone\'s time with Amar. I didn\'t want to share his attention with even Father John. Perhaps I feared that a boy would be relegated to a listener when there was another adult present. Though Amar did not look much older than I, perhaps in his mid twenties. I enjoyed the way he treated me as if I might say something important or interesting, the way he watched me as if nothing else in the world mattered at that moment but me.

Sounds selfish doesn\'t it? Look at things from my point of view a moment, ok, so this has all been my point of view. Then let me explain myself. All my life I had not felt I truly mattered. I did not mean enough to my parents for them to even keep me. To Father John I was a project, a test to create a servant of God, sure he cared about me but he didn\'t see me most of the time. He looked at me and saw the person he wanted me to become. When Amar looked at me he was looking AT me. Right then, the Albin of that moment, and he was satisfied with what he saw. I had never had anyone just be happy with me as I was, not expect me to be anything different. I must say it was intoxicating, I wanted to be the best I possibly could when I was around him because he was judging the me of the moment. Anyway, back to Amar\'s response to my question.

\"No, I do not think so. You\'re priest might not approve of nightly visits. If I could travel with you that might be one thing but since I cannot.\" He shrugged as if to add, \'what sensible person would condone such unorthidox appearances from a stranger?\' \" Let us just meet like this, hmm?\" He smiled at me warmly. Perhaps I should have been concerned or have tried harder to convince him that Father John would understand but like I stated before I didn\'t want to share him with anyone else. A part of me hoped he felt the same way.

\"How will I find you?\" I toyed with the edge of my tunic as I spoke fearing that I sounded like a lost child.

\"I\'ll find you. You\'re camp would be easier for me to spot than you trying to find me. I can then simply wait for you to leave it. Make sense?\"

I nodded. It made perfect sense. The how anyway, the why... well we weren\'t really thinking of why. I tried to stiffle a yawn but Amar saw it.

\"You had better get back to your camp, young man.\" He said with mock severity. \"I would hate for you to be too sleepy to meet me for our chat tomorrow. I would be so disappointed. \" He looked crestfallen for a moment.

\"I will be there. Sleep or no sleep. I promise.\" He looked up the and grinned a wolfish grin, of course I knew he had been teasing me but he was quite skilled with his expressions. No doubt Father John would have said he\'d have made a great actor. In fact the priest did say that Amar had been an excellent story teller when we had spoken of him not long before.

\"Good, then I shall look forward to our rendez-vous. Until tomorrow then, Mon Ami.\" With that he turned and left. Soon he disappeared completely into the night. I slowly made my way down from the rock and carefully folded the pieces of parchment with the strange script on them and placed them in my pouch.